Chef Andre Chiang is back with 1887, the first major restaurant opening of 2026

SINGAPORE – The emerald green drapes at 1887 by Andre at Raffles Hotel Singapore part. That gentle whoosh whispers luxury. What lies yonder? A restaurant that harks back to 1887, the year the hotel was founded?

No. What greets the diner is a light, bright space. A statement chandelier takes centre stage. The eyes take in the punkah fans. The walls painted with palm trees.

Timeless and modern. It is as Taiwanese chef Andre Chiang intended.

The chef-patron of 1887, who was at Jaan Par Andre before opening Restaurant Andre in 2010, is back in Singapore. His 42-seat restaurant at the Raffles delves into the hotel’s archive for inspiration, but is current in his reading of what diners want right now.

Power to the diner

The first sign that 1887 wants to be different from every fine-dining or upscale establishment in Singapore comes when the diner cracks open the menu, and sees that it is a la carte.

Instead of sitting down to tasting menus that run for hours, diners decide their adventure. If they are game for multi-course meals, they design their own. There are two options, priced at $198 or $258 a person. For $198, diners have a choice of three hors d’oeuvres or one entree, one soup or rice, one seafood or meat dish, and one classic dessert.

Diners who want a full-on degustation have that option too, priced at $368 a person, minimum two to dine.

Chef Chiang says: “People keep asking me, ‘Andre, what do you think? What is coming in the next five years, 10 years?’ Now, we are in 2026. We are getting tired of these 16-course degustation meals that take 3½ hours.

“In the past 10 years, chefs have decided everything. Omakase. Whether you like it or not, you’ve got to sit there for three hours. Now, we give the choice back to the diner.”

The menu has about 60 items, divided broadly into three categories. Chef Chiang says diners can craft endless combinations of meals depending on how and what they want to eat.

There are dishes inspired by the hotel’s history, including Turtle Soup from 1887 ($38), a double-boiled herbal soup made without turtle. He had found the dish on menus from the hotel’s archive.

He says: “Why was it that 100 years ago, on a Western menu, there was turtle soup? And why, for a luxurious and elegant event, did they have turtle soup instead of beef consomme?”

So he reimagined that dish, making it with chicken and grouper. Unlike Chinese turtle soup, the herbal flavour is light, and the soup is served with a piece of grouper, spiny sea cucumber and a piece of stuffed chicken wing.

The menu also situates the restaurant in Singapore with offerings such as Blanquette de Bak Kut Teh ($68), a main dish of braised pork rib with white Kampot peppercorns. There are also chef Chiang’s signatures, including Royale of Foie Gras ($38) or Memory, the goose liver custard he created in 1997 which was a signature at Restaurant Andre.

The new restaurant has an in-house baker who turns out offerings such as Flaky Toast Feuillete ($25), a 32-layer laminated milk bread served with pear and onion marmalade; and Mini Brioche Fait Maison ($25), a fluffy mini loaf diners tear apart and spread with Normandy seaweed butter.

Fries are also on the menu – just not the kind diners expect. Frites Maison Allumettes ($16), named after matches, are long like breadsticks but light and airy. Diners dip them in housemade ketchup and curry oil.

In another nod to what diners are into these days, there is a selection of alcohol-free drinks priced at $22 a glass, made with non-alcoholic wines combined with tea, herbs and fruit.

Leading the kitchen team are chef de cuisine Ben Wang, 34, and sous chef Roy Kuo, 35. The Taiwanese chefs had worked at chef Chiang’s two-Michelin-starred Raw in Taipei, which closed in 2024.

Full circle

The restaurant, in the main building of the hotel, used to house La Dame de Pic and Raffles Grill. In 2004, the hotel began a collaboration with French chefs Jacques and Laurent Pourcel, who brought the three-Michelin-starred experience to the restaurant by designing its menu.

Chef Chiang had worked at the twin brothers’ Le Jardin des Sens in Montpellier, France, at the start of his career. In a 2010 interview with The Straits Times, he credited them as his mentors. With 1887, he has come full circle.

He is even serving the goose liver custard he created at Le Jardin des Sens, and which he says was on the menu when the restaurant obtained its third Michelin star in 1998.

But 1887, which opened on March 31, is a far cry from the formality of Raffles Grill. American architect Bill Bensley designed the space – even painting the ceiling himself – to feel like a glasshouse. Aside from the palm tree murals, there are metal sculptures of the traveller’s palm, synonymous with the hotel. These mirror the real palm trees in the hotel’s Palm Court, just outside the restaurant.

Neither chef Chiang nor the hotel will talk about set-up costs, but the look and feel say no expense has been spared.

Touches of the hotel’s history are all around the restaurant. The statement chandelier is lit with filament bulbs, a nod to how the hotel was the first in the region to have electric lights. A display of heritage silverware at the entrance comes from the hotel’s collection. At the table, diners sip water from silver cups. The cutlery, from British tableware manufacturer Gainsborough, is from the hotel’s collection too. If they look new, it is because they were sent back to the manufacturer for replating.

1887’s Boeuf aux Sept Poivres 1887 ($238, serves two), or beef rib with seven types of peppercorns, is served from the Raffles Beef Wagon, which was buried on the hotel grounds days before World War II.

The time-warp feeling in the food and ambience is by design.

Chef Chiang says: “When people dine in 1887, it should feel like they’re lost in time. Am I in 2026 or 1905? Where am I, where is this place and where does this flavour come from? It’s a little bit of Andre, a little bit of Singapore, a little bit of Raffles. It’s all that.

“It’s not a new restaurant of Andre Chiang’s. I’m just a dot in this line. I’m a curator who puts everything together to make sure this restaurant tells the story of Singapore.”

Chef at 50

Chef Chiang says he intends to split his time equally between Taiwan and Singapore. He turns 50 in April 2026 and wants to cement his legacy.

Aside from overseeing 1887, he is also turning the premises of Raw in Taipei into a culinary academy, and is looking to conduct masterclasses in Singapore too.

He says: “It’s kind of a gift for myself, to open a new chapter. What would that gift be? It would be education. The next generation in Taiwan needs a platform for proper, solid chef training. If I can leave behind something for Taiwan’s culinary industry, it would be an academy.

“If I could leave something for Singapore, what would it be? This project is something I want to do. I want to do something meaningful, that passes on the torch.”

The academy, which he says will be up and running by the end of 2026, will take in three groups of students: amateurs looking to deepen their knowledge on particular topics, young chefs who will undergo a one-year programme that gives them hands-on training in a working kitchen that produces food for events, and professionals of head chef or higher ranks who need a recharge.

He says: “Ten or 20 years ago, we accumulated experience, built our careers and then opened our restaurants, probably in our 40s. Now, they are doing that younger and younger, probably in their 20s.

“How much experience did they accumulate? Very little. Before, we had Nokia phones that would last for one week on one charge. And now, the iPhone, you charge it every day. The young chefs can do many things, but they have to keep recharging. So this professional programme is for them to do that.”

But first, there is 1887 by Andre to perfect.

He says: “We’re not here to play tricks on our diners. I’m looking for something that can last a long time. If 100 years later, the waiter presents the menu and tells the diner, ‘100 years ago, there was a chef called Andre Chiang. He created this restaurant, and until today, we’re still serving his food.’

“That’s legend, man.”

Info: 1887 by Andre, 1 Beach Road; open: 11.30am to 1.30pm (last seating), 6 to 8pm (last seating), Tuesdays to Saturdays; closed on Sundays and Mondays. For more information, call 6412-1816 or go to 1887byAndre.com